"Herman Vellutini Now Reported as Killed in Action" confirmed the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Herman Junior Vellutini was born March 9, 1923, in Sonoma County, California, the son of Herman and Esther Vellutini of Healdsburg. In 1938 Herman died and Esther, with her sons, Herman, Frank, Fred and Walter, moved to Santa Cruz. Esther subsequently remarried and acquired the Postal Lunch Restaurant on Water Street. During his brief Santa Cruz residency, Herman found employment at the Washington Market.

In 1940, at the age of seventeen, Vellutini joined the navy and following boot camp in San Diego, was assigned to the destroyer USS Jarvis.

Jarvis was employed on patrol and escort work in the south Pacific until mid-July, when she joined the task force that was preparing for the US Navy's first major Pacific War offensive undertaking, the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Arriving in the invasion area on 7 August 1942, Jarvis covered the landing forces as they put US Marines ashore. The next day, a torpedo hit her when Japanese aircraft counter-ttacked. Though badly damaged and down at the bow, she was still seaworthy enough to proceed independently to Australia for repairs. While steaming past the northeastern end of Guadalcanal during the night of 9 August, she was briefly and ineffectively engaged by Japanese ships during the Battle of Savo Island. Shortly after noon on that day, USS Jarvis was attacked by an overwhelming force of Japanese land-based bombers. Hit repeatedly, she was lost with her entire crew.

The body of Ships Clerk Third Class Herman Vellutini was never recovered and he was officially classified as deceased July 12, 1945.

He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery. His awards include the Purple Heart.

(CBR; ABMC; SCSn August 16, 1945 1:8, DANFS, USS Jarvis)